I don’t take his hand. He pulls it back to his side.
“So what you after, mate?” he says, gettin next to me and slippin his arm round me shoulder.
I get shivers all down me, but I don’t pull away. And I close me eyes so he don’t see the hate in em.
“Tony Thatcher?” I says low, but enough to make him hear.
Pays to make sure, you know. Especially when you’re about to do a geezer.
He stiffens beside me. Stops. Takes his arm off. He knows my sort. He knows where I’ve come from and what I’m here for. Probably been waitin for this moment in his two o’clock in the mornin wakin nightmares for fuckin weeks. I wonder if he ever saw me face or if I was only ever just a shadow.
“Come in the office,” he says, not so fuckin full of himself now.
And I follow him through a maze of big and little motors of all different colours to inside the showroom.
He says for me to sit in the waitin area by the coffee machine while he goes and gets someone to take over the wanderin about and nabbin punters. He’s gone about ten minutes, while me arse gets numb on a plastic chair like they got in schools. There’s posters of motors on the wall with half–naked birds draped all over em. Cheap. Fuckin cheap. Like what you used to see in pubs where they’d sell peanuts and pork scratchings off a cardboard picture of a naked bird and the more peanuts and pork scratchings you bought the more of her you’d see. Ain’t seen them things in fuckin years.
He comes back.
“Sorry about that, Mr . . . ?”
“Dean,” I says.
He nods, like it settles him to put a name to me.
We go in his office.
What surprises me first of all is how fuckin nice it is in here. I was expectin some shitty little office with coffee stains everywhere and tacky as fuck, but perhaps this geezer’s got more class than what I give him credit for.
There’s pot plants in a corner – tall ones, sort of like palm trees but not — and more on the window sill overlookin the forecourt. I’m the same with flowers and stuff as I am with motors. Wish I knew more, to be honest. I mean, anything that can sort of just grow out of the ground from fuckin nothing, from just a little seed, deserves a bit more fuckin respect, don’t it. If a scumfuck like Tony Thatcher can be bothered to find out the name of someone like me, the least I can fuckin do is learn the name of a couple of plants. Something to teach Sophie too.
He takes his jacket off and hangs it on a hat–stand behind the desk, and says for me to sit down, so I do. It’s a swivel chair, and it don’t take me weight that well, but I ain’t here to get comfortable. Tony Thatcher goes round the other side of the desk, and sits opposite. And as he’s sittin here facin me, he bends down low to his right, almost so I can’t see him. I’m ready. I’m tensin. Gotta be ready in this game. All the fuckin time. I’ve got a reach on me. Learnt that as a youngster down the boxin gym. I know I can cave his nose in quicker than he can take whatever he’s reachin down to get.
He’s fiddlin with something. Probably the lock’s stuck. I’m just ready to lean over and give him a dig, when this music comes on. And I freeze. Ice cold. Strings. Gorgeous fuckin strings wellin up like tears.
“Hope you don’t mind,” he says, sittin up. “Helps me relax, you know.”
Fuck. I’m just starin at him. Froze like ice.
“Me mates all think I’m a bit of a cunt for likin all this classical stuff,” he says.
“Largo, Symphony number Five,” I says.
A big smile comes on his face. And he breathes all his fear out. Shostakovich can do that. Even to hard cunts like me and silly cunts like this Tony Thatcher.
So here we are. The two of us. Me and this geezer I gotta kill. Sittin here in a car showroom office, lookin at each other, lettin Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony take us to places too beautiful and too fuckin sad for words.
Chapter Seven
Me eyes are wet when I open em. And there’s Tony Thatcher fell forward on his desk, a knife stuck out the side of his neck. Alfie Knowles is standin beside him, grinnin like a cunt. Knowles looks at me, and his grin gets wider. Then he bends right in close to the knife, like he’s a fuckin surgeon, and slices the blade down slow, openin Tony Thatcher’s neck wide open and spillin it onto the desk.
Alfie Knowles stands up again, wipes the knife on his trousers, all to the sound of Shostakovich still playin.
But not for long.
“Dunno what you see in that poncy shit,” Alfie Knowles says to me, noddin down to the side of the desk where the music’s comin from.
He waits for the drums poundin to an end, then his face gets all contorted, and he puts his boot through the stereo.
“That’s enough of that shit,” he says, not takin his eyes off me for a second.
He starts drummin thin air with closed fists – one of em wrapped round the bloodied six inch blade.
“Where’s your proper drummin, man?” he says. “And your axes? Your fuckin axes, man?”
Alfie Knowles proceeds to dance around the back of the desk, strummin the blade up and down like a make–believe guitar.– all the noises thrown in. Looks – and sounds – like a fuckin ten year old.
Then he stops, sudden. Like someone’s just switched him back to reality. He walks round to where I am. I ain’t moved a muscle. Me head’s still cradled in me arms on the desk, Tony Thatcher’s blood oozin towards me.
He comes close in and points the blade in me face.
“Micky said you wouldn’t do it. Said you was gone all soft. And he was fuckin right, weren’t he?”
His breath stinks of all manner of shit. And by his eyes, I can tell he’s coked up to the fuckin ceiling.
I’m lookin at Tony Thatcher. His dead eyes are still open – starin at me sidewards from where his head’s layin on the desk opposite, blood still pumpin out the gapin hole in his neck. And I wonder when he got up this mornin if he ever thought this was on the cards for him today, you know, him bein dead.
Some people live with it every moment of their lives, expect it every fuckin day. Soldiers, firemen, even coppers – nowadays. Plus there’s us on the other side of the proverbial fence, as it were. From the big bosses like Micky to the runners and the scrotes and all us horrible cunts in between. You start off thinkin of it as an occupational hazard, death, but soon you don’t think about it at all. You become immune even to the fuckin thought of it. And that’s what creates the gung–ho of it all, the bravado. Turns us into thinkin we’re all fuckin invincible.
But what’s really happenin is you’re so fuckin scared, you pretend death don’t exist. You push it right down into the dark. Like what I was sayin about Nietzsche earlier. That cunt. About things not really happenin. All them squaddies and them coppers and cunts like me and Alfie Knowles here, death don’t mean nothing, not day to day. Ends up, you can’t let it in, you’re so scared. But them what we love – or say we love cos nothing stops us, we keep on doin whatever the fuck we’re still doin — they’re the ones what really hurt. They’re the ones what really suffer. Every minute of their lives. That’s why in our game, you don’t get close to no–one cos the only person you can ever look after is yourself. That’s the mistake I made with Beth. I got close. It all got fucked up in the end, of course, and that feelin of love bein lost, that’s the worst death of all.
“Sit up, cunt!” Alfie Knowles screams. He grabs the neck of me jacket, pullin me up straight. “That’s better,” he says, knife to me neck, leanin over me from behind. “Now what are we gonna do with you then?”
He pushes the knife closer into me neck. The blade’s so sharp, I don’t even feel it go in – just feel the blood runnin down me neck. It’s only a little way in. Just a taster.
So this is it. This is how it’s gonna end. Part of me wants it to, wants this whole fuckin sad excuse of a fuckin life to fuck off into the nothing where it come from. Beth wouldn’t care. Wouldn’t care a fuck.
The knife still at me neck, Alfie Knowles leans over th
e desk and picks up the photo of Tony Thatcher’s family. Missus and three littl’uns, smilin off a sea wall somewhere hot like Torquay or something. Alfie Knowles must be lookin at it hard, cos I can feel the knife comin away a bit like he ain’t concentratin on me no more.
Now’s me chance. There’s words of Byron float through me head. Floatin, but shoutin, clear as a fuckin bell, like the mad bastard himself is tryin to tell me something:
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought and that was death,
Immediate and inglorious.
Inglorious. That’s it. That’s what this would be. In–fuckin–glorious. Beth might not give a fuck, but I ain’t havin Sophie thinkin I’ve lost me bottle.
So with them Shostakovich drums beatin in me heart and that mad bastard Byron yellin in me ears, I swing me elbow backwards into Alfie Knowles’ bollocks.
He doubles over with a swift intake of breath and a grunt. I push back hard on the edge of the desk, and scoot backwards on the swivel chair into the pot plants in the corner. I stumble to me feet, pick up the swivel chair by the seat, and brand it in front of me like a lion tamer at some sort of office furniture based circus. I’m ready for whatever Alfie Knowles has got. He’s got a blade, I know that. And I’ve got a swivel chair. On the face of it, I’m fucked.
But I got Sophie waitin for me.
Alfie Knowles looks up at me from across the room, wide–eyed and breathless, still fucked from the dig in the bollocks I give him. He comes at me, staggerin. I’m waitin for him to get in range, then he stops.
“What’s that?” he says.
“What?”
He points at me with his blade.
I look down to where he’s pointin.
“It’s a swivel chair,” I says.
“Not that,” he says, and he bends the knife round like he’s meanin behind the chair, “that?”
I keep the chair up with one hand, cos I’m a strong cunt, and pat me jacket down with the other. Then I feel it. I feel what he sees. A long floppy ear.
“It’s a rabbit,” I says, pokin the ear back in me jacket.
“Nice,” he says.
And I think he means it.
Like before, something clicks him back to reality, and he comes at me with the blade again, his face all scrunched up and his teeth showin.
But I’m focussed and I’m ready. Soon as he’s in range, I chuck the swivel chair wheels–first at his head. It catches him proper, and knocks him on the floor. The knife falls out his hand and lands by the desk. I reach back and wrap me hands round the top of the trunk of one of them palm tree pot plant things, and when he gets up on his feet, one eye mashed where a wheel’s caught him, I step forward and swing the whole pot plant at him like a nine iron.
The ceramic pot explodes into the side of his face. Earth and bits of pot everywhere. Alfie Knowles falls sideways straight on the floor like a felled tree, one half of his head split right open.
I drop the palm tree pot plant thing, and go over to him. He looks fucked, to be honest, but it always pays to make sure.
As I’m leanin over him, he does a low groan. He opens the only eye he’s got left, and starts raisin up an arm, pointin to me, his teeth gritted, groanin like it’s takin all the strength he’s got left just to do it. He grabs the air in front of me, then drops his arm back down, then Alfie Knowles closes his one good eye and breathes all ragged. I notice Sophie’s rabbit’s pokin out me jacket. I push it back in. Then I stand up, and stamp hard on his face.
Like I said, always pays to make sure.
Talkin of makin sure, I need to go through his pockets. I wanna know if Micky’s sent him or Alfie Knowles come after me on his own back. I go back down to him, open his jacket. There’s blood all over. It ain’t nice. I reach inside, lookin for his phone. In his inside pocket, there’s a folded up bit of paper. Instructions from Micky, no doubt. Coded, so he can’t be tied back to it. Probably what him and Alfie Knowles was talkin about in the boozer. Cunt fuckin had it comin, Alfie Knowles. They’ve all got it comin.
I smile a smile I ain’t smiled in years. Full of hate and power. I’m almost laughin.
I unfold the bit of paper, thinkin I’ll find the truth of it all. But it ain’t no writin. It’s a picture. A tree and a house and a rabbit. All done in crayon, done like a four–year–old. At the bottom there’s loads of kisses like crosses, and ‘I LUV YOO DADDEE’ writ in big sprawlin letters.I close me eyes, and bow me head in shame, wonderin what Alfie Knowles kid is gonna grow up like.
I’m drownin. Drownin deep inside.
But I gotta get meself together quick, find me way out of this shit. I get to me feet and stamp on Alfie Knowles’ face hard one more time for makin me do this to him.
***
Outside the office, the first thing occurs to me is Sophie’s rabbit. I wipe me hands down me trousers to get the blood off, and pull the rabbit out me jacket. I hold it up to make sure there ain’t no blood on it. I look it over careful. It’s okay. I hold it to me neck and close me eyes, and I wonder what the fuck I’m gonna do now.
With all the noise what must’ve been comin out that office the last twenty minutes or so, the first thing I’m thinkin is no–one come in. Time I had a nose round.
There’s rows and rows of cars in here – and a full up forecourt outside. I start doin a row at a time, lookin for any sign of life.
I see the two salesmen straight off, sittin in a dark blue motor with a sticker on the front sayin: SALE TODAY – £6,999. I don’t know if that’s a decent price or not, like I said, I know fuck all about motors. But it seems reasonable.
The salesman geezer in the driver’s seat, his head’s hangin right off to the side where Alfie Knowles has cut his throat right through to his spine. There’s another one sittin in the passenger seat, just the same. Alfie Knowles has put their heads leanin together, and their arms round each other and cut a Glasgow Smile into each one, like in James Ellroy’s Black Dahlia. True story, that. Based on, anyway. First of his L.A. Quartet. Well worth a look, if you get a minute.
I keep on movin across and between the rows of cars. Nothing. I go back to the front of the showroom. I see in the front window Alfie Knowles has very conveniently put the ’closed’ sign up. That explains why the place is so quiet. He must have crept in, got hold of these two salesmen types, cut em up, then looked for Tony Thatcher’s office. The Shostakovich seems to have held him back a bit, but soon as he’d had enough of that, he’s crept in the office, and done Tony Thatcher. Cos of the Shostakovich bein so loud, and me and Tony Thatcher soarin in the heavens, we never heard him comin.
Something’s really pullin me inside about Tony Thatcher bein dead in the same room as Alfie Knowles. Long remembered words, floatin up.
I died for beauty, but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.
He questioned softly why I failed?
‘For beauty,’ I replied.
‘And I for truth – the two are one;
We brethren are,’ he said.
And so, as kinsmen met a–night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.
Emily Dickinson writ that. I learnt it off by heart when I was about fifteen. Always wondered if I’d find someone to lie down and die with, like in that poem. If ever in me whole life I’d meet someone that close, you know.
Then I get this energy through me, this determination. No way I’m leavin Tony Thatcher dead in the same room as that cunt Alfie Knowles.
I make me way to the office, ready to drag Alfie Knowles out and stick him in a cupboard or something. I’m just about to open the door, when I remember the picture. The picture drawn by his little kid, of the tree and the house and the rabbit. And all them loads of kisses. I see his littl’un in me head, choosin the colours, probably his ton
gue out the side of his mouth when he’s doin the straight lines – cos they all do that – and I got him waitin by the door for his dad to come home, holdin the picture behind his back, his heart beatin fast, excited at the cuddle he’s gonna be gettin that’ll make the whole world perfect, just for a moment.
There’s beauty and there’s truth in all of us. But sometimes it’s so well hid we don’t ever know we’ve got it till it’s too late. We just feel it in glimpses sometimes and don’t know what it is, or we see it in the eyes of those too innocent to know better, lookin at us like their whole world’s lit up. But we never see it like that cos deep down, deep inside use, we hate ourselves too much to accept that light in their eyes has got anything to do with us.
***
There ain’t gonna be no–one worried about anyone here for another couple of hours, but the dark’s drawin in outside and I gotta see Sophie.
I’m thinkin I can’t leave these poor bastards in the motor where they are, cos anyone lookin in’s gonna catch a right eyeful, and the Old Bill’s gonna be swarmin all over the gaff in no time.
But then again, if I could give a shit about what happens to me anymore I’d be goin round wipin off all me fingerprints and gettin rid of all these bodies.
But truth is, I couldn’t care a fuck no more. Not about no–one.
I just wanna see my Sophie.
I catch me reflection in the dark front window. I look a right state. Can’t have Sophie seein me like this. I go back in the office and grab Tony Thatcher’s jacket off the hat–stand. It’s a bit tight across the shoulders, but does up in the middle, so least it covers up me shirt where Alfie Knowle’s blood got all over it. That’s the main thing. Can’t have me bein stopped by the Old Bill on the way to see Sophie. Like I said, the jacket does the job, but it’s tight, and no way Sophie’s rabbit’s gettin in there. Looks like I’m carryin it in me hand from here on in.
One Day In The Life Of Jason Dean - Ian Ayris Page 5
